Tiny Tips (2025)

The Tiny Tips column from the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The unrest reflected much deeper frustrations, including high unemployment, particularly among young people, growing poverty and anger at corruption and mismanagement. People see public resources channelled into luxury spending and infrastructure deals benefiting a few powerful figures connected to the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), while basic services and jobs are neglected.

[Inter Press Service News Agency]

In 1978, Clive James reviewed the official biography of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982) by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, CPSU Central Committee. “I read the whole thing from start to finish, waiting for the inevitable slip-up which would result in a living sentence. It never happened.” James found it so dull that “If you were to recite even a single page in the open air, birds would fall out of the sky and dogs drop dead.” 

[MSN]

The announced $7 billion would be the biggest official tranche of funding to Ukraine’s drone industry so far. It’s close to the $6 billion that Ukraine’s defense minister, Denys Shmyhal, has said Kyiv needs to cover this year’s production of first-person-view drones, interceptors, long-range drones, and missiles. While new, Ukraine’s drone industry has increasingly been in the spotlight for producing cheap but effective weapons regularly being used to destroy Russian loitering munitions, armor, artillery, and production facilities. 

[Yahoo]

From an anarcho-communist perspective, this moment is not simply about one man’s death. It is about the world that produced both Charlie Kirk and the man who killed him. It is about capitalism’s ever-present violence, about the state’s monopoly on force, about the way political antagonisms are escalating into open bloodshed. It is about what happens when a society soaks every interaction in hierarchy, coercion, alienation, and humiliation, and then acts shocked when someone pulls a trigger…Wage labour itself is enforced by violence. If you refuse to work, you starve, or you are policed, or imprisoned. The entire edifice of private property rests on threat and force. 

[The Slow Burning Fuse]

North Korea’s Kim vows to build a ‘socialist paradise’ [sic]. 

[Morning Star]

Having a home of our own is essential to leading a dignified life, but in Venezuela, where access to housing is enshrined as a right in the Constitution, renting adequate accommodation is an unattainable luxury for hundreds of thousands of families, and buying property is almost impossible. Not only do market prices far exceed the average household income but inflation has also wiped out home loans, leaving citizens without access to financing. 

[Equal Times]

There is no genetic or biological basis for dividing the human race into distinct “races”. There are just groups of human beings — all of whom came from Africa originally — who developed slightly different physical characteristics over time as they travelled to, and adapted to, different climates and environments. 

[The Conversation]

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Running Commentary: Russia yawns (1982)

The Running Commentary Column from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

In face of the conspicuous indifference of the Russian working class, the weeping news-reader announced that their leader, Leonid Brezhnev, was dead. Within a week the non-weeping masses were told to mop up their tears, for a new Tsar (official title: General Secretary of the Communist Party) had been appointed by the Politburo. Like the dictator who preceded him. Yuri Andropov. ex-KGB chief and Russian ambassador in Budapest in 1956, will preside over the Russian state capitalist empire. All leaders, be they elected like Thatcher and Reagan, or installed by totalitarian regimes, like Andropov and Jaruzelski. can only rule within the limitations of the anti-social profit system. Brezhnev’s tyrannical policies, which sent dissidents to the freezing wastelands of Siberia or the mind- manipulating confines of psychiatric asylums, were not the expression of his own hatred of the working class, but of capitalism’s inherent inability to satisfy working class needs and still produce maximum profits.

The new leader of Russian capitalism lives in a luxury apartment at Kurtuzov Prospekt — a home which is said to compare favourably with any owned by the richest capitalist parasites. How does he get his privilege and luxury? Simply by being one of the class of Party bureaucrats who control the state, which formally owns the means of wealth production and distribution. In short, Andropov and his fellow Communist Party dictators over the proletariat, live off the fruits of the labour of the Russian working class. To speak of such a system as socialist — as do certain gullible folk on the Left — is to totally distort the meaning of the word.

Capitalism is characterised by wage labour and capital, social phenomena which clearly exist in Russia. The only difference between Andropov's capitalism and Reagan’s is that in the latter capital tends to be privately owned and controlled and workers have some opportunity to choose their leaders, whereas under the former the state owns and controls most capital and workers have very limited democratic opportunities.

Within the field of capitalist politics, the so-called Left wing favours state capitalism and the Right wing prefers private capitalism. Both are prepared to accept either form of capitalism when the needs of profit-making dictate: for example, for all his rhetorical commitment to “the Soviet system” (state capitalism) Brezhnev was always happy to trade with the West. Whatever new policies Andropov may introduce, the capitalists of the West may rest assured that he will not cease to involve the Russian state in international commercial competition in which the wage slaves always lose.

Socialists oppose capitalism in ail its forms; we oppose it for the simple reason that it has outlived its usefulness as a way of organising society. Opposing the idea that there must always be leaders and led. socialists regard the passing of Brezhnev and the inauguration of his successor as of no consequence to the working class. The class which produces all social wealth need not mourn the death of one of those who legally steals that wealth from us. 

Steve Coleman

From the WSPUS Radio Series: Nixon & Brezhnev - bosom buddies (1973)

From issue number 4 (1973) of The Western Socialist

There used to be a joke during the last days of World War II about a discussion between an American and a Russian soldier on the relative merits of their respective countries. The GI bragged that because the U.S. is a democracy he could walk right up to President Truman and say: "Mr. Truman. you are an SOB," and get away with it. The Russian responded: "That’s nothing. I can walk right up to Chairman Stalin and say: Comrade Stalin, President Truman is an SOB and I could get away with it."

Well, times have changed and the joke would be completely irrelevant now. For if an American soldier today could walk up to President Nixon and call him an SOB there would be little doubt of the outcome. Nor could a Russian soldier accost Mr. Brezhnev in these times with the message that Mr. Nixon is an SOB without dire consequences to him. For, strange as it seems, Mr. Nixon appears to be admired in Soviet Russia now almost to the extent he is denounced, even reviled in the United States. It would almost seem, from outward appearances gained at the time of the recent Brezhnev visit to these shores that the Kremlin boss could very well run an American style election and win at least a seat in the U. S. Senate while there would be little doubt that Mr. Nixon, were it not for the language barrier, could easily become an important wheel In the Politbureau in Moscow. He is certainly cut from that mold.

But there is a lesson to be learned in all of this. Aside from the obvious fact that the U. S. has a type of bourgeois political democracy that is unique in the world, where scandals of the proportion of Watergate can be brought into the open, the culprits tried in the Press and on TV before they are ever tried in court, there is little difference between the U. S. and Soviet Russia. Putting aside the contradictions and the hypocrisies of the Nixons and the Brezhnevs and getting down to brass tacks why did Mr. Nixon go to Moscow and why did Mr. Brezhnev come here? The answer has been emblazoned in the press and over the air waves with no attempt to hide the truth. Trade agreements, business deals and whatever else might be required to accomplish this aim. The private and corporate owners of American industry stand to make huge profits as do the bureaucrats of state capitalist Russia who function as capitalists even if they may not be so categorized, legally. In any event, neither the workers of America nor the vast bulk of the Russian population have anything to gain from the ‘‘Summit” talks and trade agreements. Their function remains to produce all of the wealth of their respective lands in return for the cash with which to purchase the commodities they need to survive as workers.

So it is certainly not a case of Moscow and Washington laying aside sharp differences in philosophy and ideology for the good of humanity. It is merely a recognition that there is really more in common between American capitalists (and their political wheeler-dealers) and Soviet bureaucrats than there is between these “better" folk and the working population of their respective countries. That the name of the game is profits and that American capitalists and Russian bureaucrats have much to gain by sharing the profits wrung from the hides of their respective working classes.

If our words could penetrate the walls of Soviet censorship our message to our fellow workers in the USSR would be: do what you can to bring an end to the system of state capitalism that keeps you in grinding wage slavery, that masquerades under the name of socialism. Join with us in our attempt to build a genuine socialist movement throughout the world. Our goal is not the widening of trade but the abolition of trade and all the other features of capitalism.

Russia drops the pretence (1992)

From the February 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (or Union of So-called Socialist Republics, to be more accurate) is no more. When, on 25 December, the red flag over the Kremlin was lowered for the last time, the 74-year association of Russia and “socialism” came to an end. In each of the member-states of the new Commonwealth of Independent States nationalism has replaced Leninism as the official ideology.

Socialists can only welcome the abandonment by the Russian authorities of any claim to be socialist. That claim was never justified, not under Lenin any more than under Stalin, and did uncalculable damage to the cause of genuine socialism. Now Russia can be seen as what it always was in reality: one other capitalist state in a world of capitalist states.

What has happened in Russia—the emergence of a political regime relying more on the consent of the ruled than on their coercion—was bound to happen sooner or later since a developed capitalist economy cannot be run for any length of time on police-state lines, at least not without creating serious economic difficulties.

A modern industrial economy requires an educated working class to operate it, and such a working class cannot be bullied into working efficiently. Their co-operation has to be sought, and to this end they have to be granted certain rights both at work and in society generally, such as the right to form trade unions that can bargain over wages and working conditions and the right to have a say via the ballot box in the choice of political leaders.

State capitalism

All developed capitalist countries have been forced to grant the working class such rights. So it was possible to predict that this would happen sooner or later in Russia too. but not precisely when and how. We detected the beginning of this process in Russia under Khrushchev in the late 1950s and early 1960s and it seemed then that some sort of political democracy would emerge there within a decade or so. But then came Brezhnev. And we must confess to being as surprised as anyone else at the speed with which events have moved in Russia and Eastern Europe over the past three years.

The point is that the actual course of events depends on the precise historical background and on the choices made by those involved—the ruling class and their political representatives, and the working class. Those who seized political power in Russia in 1917 used it to force the pace of capitalist development there. The state was used not only to drive the peasants off the land and into the factories, mines and construction sites (as had happened in the early stages of capitalism in England too) but also to organise the extraction of surplus value from the newly-created working class and its accumulation as more and more capital, a task which in other capitalist countries had been left to the private initiative of capitalist enterprises.

As a result the type of capitalism that emerged in Russia was one where the state was the capitalist. As the state was monopolised by a clique of Party and state officials, known in Russian as the “nomenklatura”, this made them the effective owners of the means of production, even if collectively as a body rather than as individuals, and enabled them to enjoy a privileged lifestyle.

From the point of view of Russian capitalism, this system was relatively successful in that it built up an industrial infrastructure which allowed Russia to emerge from the Second World War as the second greatest military power in the world. However, by the 1950s there were signs that it was beginning to become a drag on further capitalist development in Russia in the same way that previously the Tsarist regime had been.

An educated urban working class had emerged that could no longer be treated in the same brutal way as the dispossessed peasants who had been slave-driven into building Russia's basic industries. A section of the Russian ruling class realised this and under Khrushchev a number of reforms were made: Stalin's methods were criticised, the labour code was made less strict, and central state control was relaxed in both the economy and the field of ideas. Another section of the ruling class, however, saw where this would logically lead: to some measure of political democracy and the end of the nomenklatura system and their privileged position in society. Khrushchev was deposed in 1964 and Brezhnev took over.

Brezhnev pursued the policy of trying to carry out economic reform while leaving the political structure—the one-party state and its privileged nomenklatura—unchanged. It didn’t work. The working class in effect refused to co-operate. "They pretend to pay us. and we pretend to work", as a popular saying of the Brezhnev era put it. Industrial development and productivity continued to stagnate. It eventually became clear to the dominant elements within the Russian ruling class that the process begun under Khrushchev in the 1960s would have to be resumed if economic stagnation was not to undermine Russia’s military strength. Gorbachev was chosen in 1985 as the man to preside over this process.

Ruling class split

Glasnost (“openness”) was introduced and the working class was allowed a degree of freedom of speech such as they had never known before, not even under Khrushchev. Gorbachev and the section of the ruling class he represented wanted to use the working class against another section of the ruling class which opposed his policies and wished to retain the old political regime. It was a classic case of the working class being drawn into the political arena by one section of the ruling class to settle scores with another section, as had occurred in Britain in the 19th century when the industrial capitalists sought the support of the working class against the landed aristocracy.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that, once in the political arena, the working class were not going to settle for anything less than the complete elimination of the nomenklatura as a privileged ruling class. They didn’t know what they wanted to put in its place but they did know that they wanted the privileged Party bosses, who had exploited and duped them for so many years, off their backs. In this respect. Yeltsin who embraced this view at a relatively early stage proved to be a shrewder politician than Gorbachev who continued to believe that the old regime could be gradually phased out of existence without upsetting the nomenklatura too much.

In the event it was the stupidity of the conservative wing of the nomenklatura that precipitated events. In staging a coup in August against Gorbachev, they brought about the complete destruction of the old political system. Most of the armed forces refused to follow the putschists and Gorbachev returned to power. Within a few days the Communist Party had been banned. As this party wasn’t a party in the conventional sense of the term but the political institution which allowed the nomenklatura to control the state and maintain its privileges, this amounted to the abolition of the nomenklatura. With this act in September 1991 Russia’s political structure caught up with its economic base.

Decolonization

Effective power passed into the hands of Yeltsin who had been elected President of Russia in a country-wide poll (whereas Gorbachev had merely been appointed by a parliament largely composed of nomenklaturists). Yeltsin's analysis of what to do to save Russia's status as a great power in the capitalist world was more radical than anything Gorbachev was prepared to contemplate: granting independence to Russia’s colonies in the Caucasus and Central Asia as well as to the Ukraine and Belorussia.

This represents the break-up of the Soviet Union as a single political unit, but since Russia made up 90 percent of the former territory and 72 percent of the former population of the USSR it is not all that of a sacrifice. Of the 10 (11 if Georgia is included) new stales only the Ukraine (population 52 million, making it the fifth largest state in Europe after Germany, France, Britain and Italy) counts for anything and will be a serious loss if it really does go its own way. The others, all apart from Belorussia and Moldavia in Asia, are unviable statelets which will remain as dependent on Russia as France's ex-colonies in Africa have on France.

Russia may have lost its super-power status—which, in any event, was based on a military might well beyond its economic capabilities—but it remains a world power still armed with many more nuclear weapons than any of the other nuclear powers except America. Strengthened by a popular allegiance the old Soviet Union never had, Russia will eventually re-enter the world arena to compete alongside greater Germany and Japan against the currently world-dominant America. At least it won't be doing so in the name of socialism, not that that will make the capitalist world of competing stales a safer place.

Adam Buick

USSR National Exhibition (1979)

Exhibition Review from the July 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earls Court 23 May - 10 June 1979

Leonid Brezhnev himself cordially welcomed me to the Soviet Exhibition and “conveys best wishes to all British citizens”, at least that is what the handout said.

There is little doubt that the Soviet government has put on a staggeringly impressive display, revealing a degree of technical achievement difficult for one who knew Russia in the lean years after 1917, to grasp.

When we consider the wholesale slaughter and destruction of two world wars, Russia’s recovery is little short of miraculous, confirming once again Marx’s dictum in the Communist Manifesto regarding the immense potentialities of labour allied to science.

The emphasis at the exhibition was on technical output — spacecraft, satellites, aeroplanes, cars, lorries, raw materials (especially minerals), oil, cameras, refrigerators, television sets, furniture, fashion, wines, it was all there, just like Tesco’s. Perfunctory lip service was paid to ‘socialism’ as the ultimate ideal society which Russia “is on the way to”.

But when Brezhnev assured us that the “Soviet Union today is a country of genuine political and social equality”, we sensed a niggling doubt, especially when informed at the television section that trade union membership is compulsory and that the trade unions are “inspired and guided” by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. What we are not told is that ‘inspiration’ is not given by any other political party, because they are not allowed to exist.

Stalin, whose swarthy features once gazed sternly down from every Soviet wall, has completely disappeared, utterly obliterated. It is hard to remember he ever existed. Lenin is mentioned as a formality, introducing Leonid Brezhnev. On the new Soviet Constitution Karl Marx was relegated to limbo, vapourised. ‘Workers of the World Unite’, once the proud slogan on every Russian kopek, was unheard of.

The exhibition was full of Russian salesmen and women taking orders from blatantly rich customers for cars, cameras, luxury watches, fabulous hand-woven carpets, sumptuous furs, expensive wines, glassware and television sets. Soviet capitalism seemed suspiciously like Western capitalist trading, just like any other exhibition at Earls Court. However, the Russian dancers (and nobody, but nobody, can dance like Russians) were well worth the entrance fee.

Horatio

Running Commentary: Cause for alarm (1981)

The Running Commentary Column from the January 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cause for alarm

A recent report by the Greater London Council makes quite clear that those who control London’s fire brigade have more than one eye upon their balance sheets!

  The cost of running the Brigade has risen considerably in recent years — from the net revenue estimate of £53.2 million in 1978-9 to nearly £65.3 million in 1979-80. Of the £65.3 million estimate for 1979-80 staff costs account for almost £54.2 million, emphasising the labour-intensive nature of the Brigade. (The Future Development of the London Fire Brigade -Discussion Document).

The GLC has responded to the government’s concern to cut public expenditure by reducing the number of operational appliances, reducing the level of manning (from that settled between the FBU and the GLC in 1974) and proposing to shut down the River Station at Greenwich. All this is bound to result in inferior fire services. The reduced number of firemen and fire appliances will affect the speed with which emergency calls can be dealt with. And emergency fire calls in London are increasing: in 1965 there were 39,566, by 1974 the figure had increased to 87,307, it was 111,520 in the drought year of 1976 and the London Fire Brigade Management Study Group have projected that by 1985 the number of emergency calls per year will reach 168,000. Is this the time to start cutting services?

Lord Denning, speaking in the Court of Appeal in 1971, stated that: “The snatching of a fellow human’s life from a terrifying death may easily turn on a quarter of a minute—a matter of seconds”.

In the same case, Joseph Milner, then Chief Fire Officer of London, pointed out that: “It is well known in the Fire Service that the speed of attack is crucial to the control and extinguishment of a fire, and that the driver of a fire appliance knows that the risk to life and property is increased by any delay in getting to a fire.”

Workers in the fire service will freely tell you that cuts spell delays. In London there are extra reasons why services will be deficient. Firstly, the fire cover for the new Docklands Industrial complex has been reduced, meaning that less money has been allocated to protecting the massive industrial area than was advised by fire experts. Secondly, the expanding tourist industry involves the existence of thousands of hotels and these are notoriously prone to catch fire. Faced with the need to send fire appliances to a burning warehouse containing millions of pounds worth of commodities and to attend a small fire in a council flat, if there are reduced services, priorities will have to be made.

If readers are in any doubt about the callousness of the capitalist administrators towards human life they need only think back to the 1977 Firemen’s strike. Remember how they brought in inexperienced blacklegs from the army to break the strike? Remember how the Labour Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, refused to meet the wishes of the FBU? Remember how the media tried to portray striking firemen —who only the week before were shown as dedicated, brave men-as irresponsible, anti-social militants? It is quite possible that declining conditions in the fire brigade will cause the FBU to call another strike. If they do, and if lives are lost as a result, workers should not condemn the firemen for their necessary participation in the class struggle. They should blame the social system which leads to strikes and other events which result in public suffering.

What next in Poland

Socialists welcome the heroic efforts of the working class in Poland to achieve trade union and other rights. Freedom of speech and freedom to organise politically are essential for the existence of a socialist party. But the chief essential must be a working class which understands and wants socialism. Sadly, that is not yet present in Poland (any more than in Britain).

In an interview in the Guardian (3.11.80) “Eva, a leading dissident intellectual, was asked what sort of society does Solidarity really want?” Eva hesitated. “I suppose people differ, but very few of us could be called socialists at all. We would even welcome multi-nationals and big combines. In theory we would not mind having capitalism back —not on the American pattern but like Sweden or Denmark.”

It has to be admitted that while people like Eva imagine that they could have capitalism “back” —as though Poland has ever had anything other than a society of wage slaves producing goods not for use but for sale on a market —the idea of socialism hasn’t yet got off the ground.

Jesus Napoleon Brezhnev

Those readers old enough to remember the days of Stalin will readily recall the sycophancy which surrounded the Great Leader. After his death, the Bolshevik gang went through the motions of deploring the Cult of Personality — of which they had all been the leading exponents. They are now building, at a place called Malaya Zemlya —the scene of a battle which nobody has heard of — a vast monument which will show the great martial deeds of the present Stalin, Brezhnev, who indeed has been created a Marshall.

The battle was of minor consequence but is now being upgraded to the rank of a Stalingrad as a turning point in the war. Brezhnev’s part was unknown at the time but his heroism is now the subject of a book which won the top literary prize in Russia. Real authentic stuff, that was. Brezhnev wrote it himself.

A song about the battle is now frequently played on Moscow Radio. It is not made clear if Brezhnev also wrote the words and music and performs it at the Bolshoi in person. According to a newspaper called Babinsky Rabochy (which no doubt exists even if you’ve never heard of it), Brezhnev is “the outstanding Marxist-Leninist political figure and statesman of the modern age”. No, he didn’t write that himself, there being no shortage of Communist hacks (this one was called Geidar Alieyv) to do the jobs for this latter day Stalin.

Inflation again

One charge that cannot be laid against Enoch Powell, with regard to his views on inflation, is that he is not ruthlessly logical. Despite being no supporter of trade unions, he is quite prepared to admit, even proclaim from the rooftops, that you cannot blame inflation on workers’ demanding higher wages. Speaking at a conference in London on 14 November he denounced the new 6 per cent limit on pay rises in the local government sector as “folly”. After saying that governments alone cause inflation by increasing the money supply (a view the present Tory government is supposed to accept), he went on:

  On that view, pay rises generally, like other price increases generally, are not the cause but the inevitable consequence of inflation, and you might as well try to stop the rain by screaming at people not to get wet as to try to combat inflation by telling pay and prices not to respond to it. (The Times, 15 November)

If the rate of price rises has been falling in recent months, this is partly because the government has been inflating the currency less (for the government is, despite what it says, still inflating the currency) but also partly because in a slump such as capitalism is now going through the general price level tends to fall.

Russians and their "Rights" (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the Helsinki Conference (1975), the question of “civil rights” in Russia has become a football to be knocked about in the arena of international politics. Jimmy Carter pontificates on human rights, eternal verities and God-given etceteras. Brezhnev’s reply is that he should go count peanuts as the Helsinki Final Act emphatically says domestic matters are private. Which is true.

It is the only treaty dealing with human “rights” which actually begins with a “get-out” clause, before it gets to poetic phrases. Its very first principle says: “The participating States will respect each other’s sovereign equality and individuality as well as all the rights inherent in and encompassed by its sovereignty . . . They will also respect each other’s right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems as well as its right to determine its laws and regulations”.

Other Covenants do at least give you the fine phrases and sweet nothings first; for example, the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (articles 1-3) guarantees that “under no circumstances may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence”.

But along with these sweet nothings there are the “get-out” clauses. Article 12 says “the above- mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order, public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others”.

For many years Soviet dissidents have, in the face of very real difficulties, been actively organizing, cooperating together, publishing news and views, communicating with the West and developing their analyses of the Soviet political and economic system. They have to contend with social and financial problems. Most lose their jobs as soon as they become actively dissident: many scrape by in casual labouring jobs or rely on their wives’ pay. In any capitalist country, the monopoly employer has a powerful weapon in the blacklist. Russia is no exception. Hardly surprising that so few in each generation have the courage to be actively critical of the Partocracy.

Governments do not operate on any principle save expediency. The Helsinki agreement came about because the Russian, American and European bosses found a common cause for concern in their heavy expenditures on defence systems, their self-interest in markets, and their growing need for international understanding on pollution, energy, space etc.

To achieve agreement on the issues involved meant horse trading. Western governments wanted more information to go into and come out of Russia, more journalists to work there. As a quid pro quo, the Russians are now sitting in on a lot of scientific seminars, including those dealing with genetic engineering — a sensitive subject, since it has terrifying “defence” possibilities. The West proposed a liberalization of Russia’s attitude to travel, emigration etc., and presumably the Russians agreed because the Helsinki Final Act so strongly emphasized the “sovereignty” of States and the principle of “non-intervention in internal affairs”.

The Helsinki document gave the Russian workers no “rights” they did not already have. Their constitution “guarantees” freedom of assembly and political opinion, also the freedom of the Press. But constitutions, like covenants, treaties and “final acts”, are merely scraps of paper. What is required is that working people should struggle, not for more paper rights, but for ownership and democratic control.

“It implies that the people are to have complete control of all social institutions, the ordering of all social activities, the domination of the whole social life. Such a condition of affairs presupposes at the very outset the ownership by the people of all the means of life . . . There can be no other foundation for democracy than this common ownership of all the means of life, for where these fall into private possession social distinctions at once spring up, the owners become dominators, and it becomes impossible for the people to control the social activities — because . . . they have not control of the means and instruments through which most important of those activities — those directed to the production of social wealth — are applied”, (Socialist Standard, Oct. 1913.)

The history of Russia since 1917 has emphatically proved our point. Abolition of Tsarism, the nationalization of land, factories, mines, railways, control by a small group of despots — all this has left the people, the working, wealth-producing people, as they were before. In Dostoyevsky’s words, “the insulted and injured”.

Government in Russia is a closed shop. The ruling party recruits almost exclusively among top management, among the nomenclatura, the apparatchiks. A party card is an essential qualification for many jobs. In terms of ideology it means nothing. In social terms, it means the possessor is a lackey, a hireling of the state. In economic terms, it provides him with money prizes, country estates, and privileges denied to mere workers. Only a tiny fraction of Russians are admitted to this exclusive club. The rest of the population keep their noses bravely to the grindstone. Only a few criticize and attack aspects of the system.

The dissidents today are not united. There are the religious, racial and ethnic groups — Christians, Jews, Ukrainians, Georgians, Crimean Tartars, often excluding members of other groups. There are writers and artists who want to do their own thing without bureaucratic hindrance or control. Among those who want a more liberal political system there is a tendency to analyze and criticize the social and economic systems as well as the political superstructure.

Sakharov has described Russia as “a society based on state capitalism” (My Country and the World). A writer in Seyatel declared in 1971 that “our country is the purest and most developed example of state capitalism”. In an article about the similarity between the western and soviet economic systems, Agursky wrote that this resemblance was due to the fact that “the economic and social system of the ‘socialist’ bloc is not in any sense socialist, but is merely a variation of State monopoly-capitalism” (Cahiers du Samizdat, June-July 1974). However an opposing view is put by Roy Medvedev, an ex-member of the CPSU, who still believes that Russia enjoys that mythical state of bliss, “the dictatorship of the proletariat”.

The Socialist does not argue for “rights”. The concept of “rights” in a property-based society is a fraud and a sham!

“What becomes of the ‘right’ to live if the means by which alone it is possible to live are in the hands of others?” (Socialist Standard, February 1911).

Some at least of the Russian dissidents are aware that Socialism has not yet happened and that the Russian political dictatorship is a reflection of the economic tyranny which is capitalism. We hope that they will advance beyond demands for political “rights” to the revolutionary position of outright opposition to exploitation, to the wages system, and to the class division which is characteristic of capitalism in all its forms. In doing this they will be expressing their awareness of their common interest with the working, wealth-producing people of all lands in ending this enslaving system.

That struggle is the only one which offers a worthwhile goal — the end of poverty, conflict, war. Those who dream of the “Rights of Man” are the Utopians of whom Plekhanov wrote: “The Utopian is one who, starting from an abstract principle, seeks for a perfect social organisation” (Anarchism and Socialism). The fine words of the Helsinki Final Act — “human rights and fundamental freedoms” — are mere sham-words, good for those who still believe in the crock of gold at the other end of the rainbow. The real fight is the opposition of the exploited class to the system which enslaves it.

Charmian Skelton

Tsar Brezhnev and the Jews (1975)

From the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

About a year ago when the furore about emigration of Jews from the USSR to Israel was at its height there appeared in the letter columns of The Guardian (that gallant defender of the weak and the oppressed), a long, well-argued, and excellently written letter from a reader who wrote “as a Manchester Jew”. This gave him two positions of strength to start with. Manchester was of course the birthplace of the paper and its home when it had some right to call itself a liberal organ (perhaps I am being a little naive, but I prefer to cherish the notion that it was rather more genuine than it is today. Well, it must have been). And a Jew, seemingly, had the right to argue that Russia was not being beastly to its Jews as all these jackals and hyenas of the west were alleging.

The writer failed to add (no doubt through modesty) more about himself which would have helped readers to evaluate his contribution. He could have added that, as well as being a Manchester Jew, he was a lifelong Communist (whether card-carrying or fellow-travelling I know not). It would have enabled readers to appreciate that what they were really reading was a professional Communist propaganda effort fronted by a babe-in-the-wood from the Manchester ghetto. And they would have been on their guard accordingly. (How do I know this top-secret information? Well, it happens that I too am a “Manchester Jew” and used to attend the same Hebrew classes as this chap. I wasn’t born in the SPGB: very few of us are.)

What was he saying in this erudite epistle? The message came through loud and clear. Any talk of anti-semitism in the Soviet Union, that glorious fatherland of the Socialist Revolution, that fearless champion of anti-fascism, that gallant defender of minorities, not to speak of the widows and the orphans, was and by definition must be sheer scurrilous slander. Russia is not against the Jews. Perish the thought. It is only the Zionists, the dupes of the State of Israel, who are being put in their place in the USSR. And he went on to say, as they always do, that had it not been for the gallant Stalinist Red Army, Hitler would have solved the Jewish Problem once for all. (He forgot to mention, again they always do, that at the beginning of the war, Stalin had a pact with Hitler and was assisting his war effort until Adolf turned on poor old Uncle Joe. “Have we deserved to be treated like this?” as the Russian diplomat in Berlin whined as Hitler was kicking him out.)

I would have like exposing this stuff for the hypocritical Communist guff it undoubtedly was. But the great organ of freedom won’t print letters from the likes of me. But within a couple of days there appeared a far better demolition job than I could have done. The writer was a London Jew. Mr. E. Litvinoff (I don’t think he is any relation of the Stalinist foreign minister of that ilk, though he might be) wrote a devastating reply along the lines: So the Russians are not anti-semites eh? Only anti- Zionists? Well, get a load of this.

There then followed the story of a pamphlet recently issued in Paris under the imprimatur of the Embassy of the USSR. This official Communist document was not only a slander of Jews qua Jews. It was not, and could not be, against Israeli Imperialists. And why not? Because, as Litvinoff made clear, it was taken word for word from a pamphlet issued in the days of Tsar Nicholas, the last of the Romanovs, by an organization known as the Black Hundreds, whose sole raison d'ê·tre was anti-semitism of the most virulent kind. They were not merely propagandists. They organized pogroms of the most brutal kind. Before Israel was even heard of — nearly fifty years before, in fact. The men, women and children who were slaughtered in the pogroms had not been Israeli imperialist stooges — they were massacred and reviled because they were Jews.

Lots of good folk condemned these murderous monsters, including Lenin. So now we have the minions of the heir of Lenin indulging in the same filth as the Tsarists themselves. So much for the Stalin Constitution which guaranteed (so we were told) freedom for minorities — which never prevented Stalin from murdering “rootless cosmopolitans” right up to his death and the monstrous “Jewish Doctors’ Plot”. But Brezhnev is the heir not of Stalin, we are told, but of Lenin. He is clearly also the heir of the Tsars — of whom at least one thing can be said. The Jews were allowed to emigrate pretty freely; and enormous numbers of them did (including, I doubt not, the father or grandfather of our “Manchester Jew”).

Well, what did the latter reply to Litvinoff? You must be joking. He disappeared without trace into the Manchester fog from which he had emerged. That is the way with these people. They write a diatribe or speak a speech — and hope to get away with it. They often do. But when they are answered they show their lack of sincerity by keeping their heads down and their mouths shut. Hoping that everyone will forget.

Now, Litvinoff has made a book out of the episode and it was reviewed in the same Guardian as ever was by their Soviet “expert” Jonathan Steele (9th November 1974). The Guardian these days is a highly successful paper and its ever-growing circulation figures are enabling it to laugh all the way to the bank. It has a square creep in a square hole whichever way you look — Steele for Moscow, Gott for South America, Gittings for China et al. These people are not reporters, so much as artful dodgers and slippery eels on behalf of the red regimes. It must be some ten years since the paper had the temerity to print a letter praying to Gott to say something about the 20,000 political prisoners in Castro’s Cuba which he had described in glowing terms (having spent his time in the Havana Hilton instead of in a prison). For nine years I looked eagerly every day for His reply. I now realise that Gott (like our Manchester Jew) never replies.

Steele writes that he found Litvinoff’s book “very disappointing”. Well, having just come back from a three months’ trip to Russia where he seems to have visited everywhere apart from your actual salt-mines, he clearly felt hurt that anyone could be so cruel to his red-fascist friends. And what was wrong with the book? Mainly that Litvinoff pointed out (as he had done in the letter) that the Russians had indulged in the same scurrility as their Tsarist predecessors. He had failed to “define the line which should be drawn between anti-semitism and anti-zionism”. Why the devil should he waste his time in such rubbish? The import of the book (which was based on a trial in Paris when the editor of the pamphlet, a French Communist frontman who said in court that he had never even seen the thing till it was printed, was found guilty of stirring up racial hatred. Such communists) was to the effect that the Russians were not interested in any such line whether it could be drawn or not. 

They reprinted pogromist literature so slavishly that they reprinted the mistakes of the illiterate Tsarists. So that Parisians in 1970, like Muscovites in 1900, can read that it is better to cast meat to the dogs than to a goy; or that a Jew can be happy when he hears an "akum” is dying. (I am quite sure there is no such word in Hebrew or Yiddish or any other language as “akum”. But Brezhnev’s men are determined to copy their mentors, boobs and all.)

Oh yes, and while Litvinoff is right to criticise the Russians for equating Zionism with Nazism, he actually compares Nazism with Soviet anti-semitism. Litvinoff really has a cheek. On the other hand, I suggest that next time Steele is a guest in Russia he visit a prison or asylum where some Jew is incarcerated and tries to show the poor devil how much difference there is between Nazism and Red Fascism.

Just in case anybody gets wrong ideas, we Socialists are not only concerned with Jews. We are concerned with all the victims of the capitalist jungle. East and West.

L. E. Weidberg

Pass the Salt II (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

"God will not forgive us if we fail." 

In England there is a principle called the sanctity of contract, which means that if two parties make a binding agreement for, say, the sale and purchase of a house and one seeks to renege, then the court will enforce the provisions of the contract. The losing party cannot thumb their nose at the decision of the court because they know it to be the servant of the all-powerful state. While many people think they can apply this principle to contracts between capitalist states (usually called treaties), the analogy is false for the simple reason that here each party is a power in its own right and there is no superior power or court which will hold the scales — and the even more important sword — of 'justice' between them. 

Capitalist states nevertheless do make treaties when it suits them (which usually means that one side is strong and the other weak). History is littered with treaties, and when it is convenient they may even be adhered to, sometimes for long periods. But history is also littered with broken treaties. There was one to respect the 'neutrality' of Belgium in 1914. And again, that of Norway in 1940. In each case Germany broke the pact; the western allies were most indignant and accused Germany of regarding treaties as scraps of paper. How right they were; scraps of paper is just what treaties are. 

The indignation is of course faked and fraudulent. In both cases the western powers had been seriously contemplating doing the violating themselves. Germany just got in first. And, as we mentioned in a recent issue of this journal, the ballyhoo surrounding the signing of a treaty at Camp David between Israel and Egypt could not hide the fact that while both sides clearly thought the piece of paper was worth having, there were simultaneous arrangements whereby both sides made sure they had enormous armaments on the new Sinai dividing line. These capitalist states were not going to defend themselves with a scrap of paper. 

Such facts are a necessary corrective, should anyone be foolish enough to imagine that the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) recently signed between Carter and Brezhnev is going to bring peace to the capitalist jungle. The treaty Russia and America have just solemnly entered into is SALT II; there was once a SALT I, and already the papers are telling us that the next stage is SALT III. If two neighbours agree to love each other, or at any rate not to strike each other, that's fine. But if they need a complete series of agreements to say they won't hurt each other, their sincerity is clearly a sham. It all sounds too much like the dictum of that puritan militarist Cromwell: trust in god, but keep your powder dry. 

The question may well be asked: why do these superpowers go through this meaningless rigmarole? The answer is that, as with Camp David, a piece of paper can have some value. It can give a breathing space. Sometimes it can be respected — if it suits the parties — for a very long time. The 1704 Treaty of Utrecht gave a piece of Spain called Gibraltar to England, whose ruling class still own it (much as they would like to get shot of it!). The reality behind SALT II is that it has dawned upon both super-powers that the cost of continual 'improvements' of nuclear weapons is becoming astronomical — and more and more ludicrous. Each side clearly has in its arsenals enough H-bombs and nuclear submarines and missiles and impregnable silos to ensure that if it came to the crunch, both sides could be wiped out — and the rest of the human race too — in a short, sharp, mutually destructive holocaust. 

In 1956, at the time of Suez, when Khruschev was sabre rattling against England, CNDers and leftists generally were quick to point out that Russia would have no difficulty in blowing England off the map, and 'our' little H-bombs could not stop her. But it is a leftist defect not to see what does not suit their arguments. The fact is that one little British Polaris submarine carried sixteen warheads, each one of which packed a punch a hundred times as violent as the pea-shooter which devastated Hiroshima and killed about 100,000 'little yellow bastards', as they were then affectionately called. A Polaris submarine is almost undetectable in the depths of the oceans and would have no problem in hitting — and wiping out — Moscow or Leningrad. 

So the balance of terror, though overwhelmingly on the side of Russia, still left Khruschev with same tricky problems; for example, would he and the rest of the red fascist gang in the Kremlin be there to smell the roses after the ball was over? Capitalist politicians (which term includes Brezhnev, of course) may not be very clever, but it does occur to them from time to time that continuous multiplication of the 'overkill' factor is enormously expensive. It is therefore in the interests of both sides to see if they can reach same accommodation on the matter. Leftists tend to think that states belong to armament makers and militarists and that consequently the more money that is spent on arms, the more the capitalist class likes it. This is nonsense, The enormous costs are paid out of the collective pocket of the capitalist state. If one section — the arms manufacturers — make huge profits, the others have to pay huge taxes. So it is in the interests of the state as a whole to try and curb all expenditure — on H-bombs as well as on the NHS. But it's a tricky job because neither side is so stupid as to trust the other. Even the capitalist class can't win 'em all, so they do the best they can. 

If you want to see the best commentary on the whole ludicrous negotiations, read Punch (16 May) with its article headed "SALT talks break down in utter confusion or maybe success". But it is nearly as hilarious to read serious papers. The Guardian (21 June) had an article by Hella Pick (their Russia expert , whose writings would always look better in Punch) headed: "Pravda warns against changes to letter or spirit of SALT". The following piece of the article is worth quoting: 

Pravda also sought to convince Americans of the Soviet Union's good faith by promising not only to observe the treaty itself', together with its accompanying 'common statements of understanding' but also all other commitments signed by Brezhnev in Vienna . . .  Pravda evidently tried to insist that Brezhnev's word, even if not put altogether into writing, was good and would be carried out." 

So it seems we can now not only trust our lives to politicians' scraps of paper, but even to the breath that comes out of their lying lips. No doubt if Brezhnev reneges (or Carter, of course) we can send him a summons to appear in the Small Claims Court. 

That other journal for leftist would-be intellectuals, The Observer, had one of its most ponderous leading articles on the subject (24 June), headed: "We must back SALT". It gave a number of reasons. The first will be enough: 

While SALT II is a disappointment because it allows both sides to build new weapons systems, it is a necessary step towards arms reductions in future.

The entire article reads like a satire worthy of Swift or Voltaire. The appalling thing is that these highly paid pundits take their own guff seriously, and no doubt Observer readers nod sagely as they read these words of wisdom. This is very sad; as ordinary people allow themselves to be fooled by this, so long will this horrific social system remain. 

As an addendum, I must not forget to give the ascription to the little quote in the sub-heading to this article. It is taken from The Observer (24 June) 'Sayings of the Week'. I fancy it is really the saying of the century. It was uttered by one of the two Great Men at the SALT talks. Carter. No — it was the other fellow. And no newspaper - not even the Morning Star - saw fit to comment on it. The mind, in this case, does not boggle. 

L. E. Weidberg

Political Notes: 'Socialism in one country' (1981)

The Political Notes column from the November 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Socialism in one country' (Britain)

At some point in every Labour Party conference the spectre of Clause Four appears, usually in the shape of some motion reasserting the belief that wholesale nationalisation is socialism and that that is what the party is committed to because it will mean a better life for everyone in Britain.

Well it is never quite as joyous as that because Clause Four is an embarrassment now, especially to Labour MPs with thin majorities, who are conscious that they are sitting on anything but a mandate to convert the means of production, distribution and exchange into common property.

So when they are confronted, as they were at Brighton in September, with a motion asking them to do what in theory they exist for—to nationalise, among other things, the financial institutions—they experience confusion to the point of panic.

One union opposed the motion because it has a lot of members in the insurance industry; another did so because it feared the effect nationalisation might have on the union's pension funds and investments.

At some stage somebody might like to explain why Labour Party members have any hesitation in unanimously acclaiming all motions in favour of nationalisation. They might also consider why they are in an organisation with interests which are opposed to the very policies it is supposed to support.

The answer to these difficulties is very simple. Nationalisation is not socialism; it is simply the state taking over an industry which was previously owned directly by private shareholders. Banks, investment houses, building societies, insurance companies and the like—state-owned or not—are a necessary part of capitalism; socialism, in contrast, will be a moneyless society in which wealth will not be exchanged and in which, therefore, there will be no means of exchange.

Were every item of Labour Party policy implemented tomorrow, the capitalist system would remain untouched. Socialism cannot exist in just one country. Its coming is delayed by the confusion and the deceit of the Labour Party.

'Socialism in one country' (Russia)

This month President Brezhnev plans to travel to Bonn but he is not going to try to convert the Germans to communism, which a few people might still believe exists in Russia.

He is going for more Russo/German trade talks and one of the matters he hopes to clear up is the price of Russian natural gas. This gas will be piped from the remote, inhospitable wastes of Siberia, where there is either 60 degrees of frost or impenetrable swampland. The pipeline will run through Czechoslovakia and then, the Russians plan, into the inviting industrial lands of Western Europe.

 The big snag is that, well before the gas has begun to flow, negotiations on the price are at deadlock, with the massive German importers, Ruhrgas, arguing that they are in a 'buyers' market and the Russians had better realise it.

So at present the Russians don't have a single signed up customer for their gas. The whole thing is, in other words, a typical commercial gamble, built on the labour of the Russia workers who had to brave the cold and the swamps to bring the project into reality.

Somebody might like to explain why Russia, which claims to be a communist country needs to involve itself in the precarious trade of international capitalism. Why does a communist state have to concern itself with negotiations with capitalist combines over prices, conditions of sale and the rest? And what will happen, in this communist country, if the gas can't be sold and all that investment doesn't yield a profit?

There is only one sensible reply to these questions. Russia is not a communist country; apart from anything else, communism cannot exist in one country; it will be a world wide social system. Russia has developed in the only way it could—it is a state capitalist country, as much concerned about its investments and trade as any other capitalist nation. And it is as susceptible to the chill winds of slump as any other.

Russian workers who froze and sweated and suffered to build the pipeline should reflect on the facts. If they draw the wrong conclusions there will be no better life for them, or for the rest of the world's people.

'Socialism in one country' (France)

Lights burned jubilantly late in left-wing abodes on the auspicious night when Francis Mitterrand was elected President of France. Glasses were clinked. Hands were shaken, Tears of joy were shed. For socialism had come to France.

We are now beginning to see what this means. Prime Minister Mauroy has announced that the government will build up the French nuclear arsenal and will develop a neutron bomb, which pleases capitalists because it kills people and leaves property intact. Mauroy calls all of this, as might be expected, a policy of deterrent "  . . . based on a strategic attack on cities."

Any member of the French ruling class silly enough to believe those happy lefties when they talked about Mitterrand introducing socialism must now be feeling mightily relieved. It is quite like old times; as Mauroy said

General de Gaulle was able to a lead a policy of military independence because he equipped the country with nuclear weapons. This government takes over this choice completely.

At some stage somebody might like to explain how a government which calls itself socialist can have the same policy as someone like de Gaulle. They might then consider whether there is some contradiction in such a government planning to build a destructive force aimed at killing workers in other countries. Doesn't socialism have something to do with internationalism?

There is only one way of satisfactorily answering these questions. No government can be socialist; it is a contradiction in terms. Mitterrand does not, and never did, stand for socialism but for a particular style of running French capitalism, which must basically be in the interests of the French ruling class.

Socialism will be a society without war and without, therefore, the means of waging war. The debate over which weapons of war are more efficient or more humane, is a debate about a feature of capitalism.

French workers who voted for Mitterrand under the impression that it is possible to have socialism in one country had better think again. And quickly; as Mauroy's promise makes clear, capitalist society grows daily more dangerous and socialism daily more urgent.